It seemed like a fantastic little plugin for WordPress. Install the 123Linkit plugin, create an account at 123linkit.com, configure your API keys on the blog, write your post, and click the Add Affiliate button at the bottom of the post. Supposedly the program would scan your blog post for relevant keywords and generate a list of advertisers with embedded links directly into your post. If someone clicked on the link, you would receive a small amount. 123Linkit would act as a middleman between the blogger and the affiliate programs. Sounded wonderful in theory, but I have not been able to get a single affiliate link to appear anywhere on the blog. I’ve tried and tried. I don’t get an error. I just get nothing! If I write a post that doesn’t have appropriate keywords, it will tell me that it found no relevant keywords. That part works. But I have written a few posts specifically for 123Linkit, using keywords that I get from their website… and nothing. No error. Just nothing happens. Maybe it was a time delayed thing? Nope. Just nothing appears.
So I’m done playing with this. I’ll look at something else instead.
[edited: Things got much better after this. Please read all the related posts, or try 123Linkit for yourself!]
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
What a pain; I hope you find something that works for you! The whole advertising on blogs thing seems really fickle (not that I’m an expert or anything, but from what I’ve seen from personal experience).
Yeah, I’m a little disappointed, but it’s not the end of the world. I didn’t look at it as a way to make a ton of money… I just wanted to get the ball rolling, and see what I could learn from it. Seeing as my experience with Google Adsense was cut short. 12Linkit was actually a pretty simple concept, but it just doesn’t seem to be working properly on these servers.
Ah well… off to the next great idea!
Hi Stephen,
My name is Yasmine and I’m the founder of 123LinkIt. I’m really sorry we’re not finding any relevant affiliate links for you. We’re in our pre-launch stage right now and our main focus is to get feedback (like this) to make the plugin better before we officially release it. In the meantime, we’re adding as many advertisers as possible to combat this issue. With that said, we also ensure they’re relevant to the post so they’re not spammy and are more likely to convert into revenue.
We’re working on a couple of features right now that will be released at the at the beginning of next month. You may want to check them out if you are willing to give us another chance.
One is a keyword suggestion feature that allows you to add in keywords if we don’t have them in our database (which sounds like it’d be a big help to you). The other is automatic linking of old and current posts. We’re internally calling this the “lazy man’s 123LinkIt” and it’ll allow our users to click on one button that will automatically add relevant affiliate links to old and current posts.
We’re extremely committed to making this the best affiliate plugin out there and we’re actively building the tool based on our users feedback. Please don’t hesitate to contact me with any ideas/feedback/comments, etc. My email address is yasmine@123LinkIt.com and my number is 215.948.2426.
Best,
Yasmine
Well… first of all, let me say how very impressed I am that you are obviously actively paying attention to what is being said about your company online… and acting upon that. I was very pleasantly surprised to see this comment (and the other), especially since my original post has not been up for very long, and it’s a weekend.
I like the simplicity of what 123Linkit does. I think that it’s a great piece of software for bloggers, and have tried it on and off for a couple of months now, always hoping for a different outcome. I realized that this particular blog is too general for any one theme, but I have written specific posts that I was sure should trigger some sort of affiliate recommendation, yet none was given. And I’m glad that you mentioned the “spammy” posts, because that might have been the problem with my last test post (which did not stay live, as it was strictly a test), which was so obviously loaded with keywords directly from your site, that it may have been considered to be too over the top. I wrote it out of frustration, simply trying to get it to recommend SOMETHING to me.
I will continue to try to get the 123Linkit plugin working properly, starting with the post you identified on Online Dating. While I think that the 123Linkit idea is a great one, I’m more impressed with you taking the time to come here to talk to me, and the fact that you obviously glanced through the blog and identified a post to try it with. To me, that’s definitely worth a second chance.
Thank you,
Stephen
Thanks Stephen! I’m excited to hear you say that. Our goal is to build a useful tool based on our users feedback so we’re working hard on being as retroactive as possible. I’ll keep an eye out on the Online Dating post. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to reach out for any reason. I promise we’ll try hard to keep impressing you
Best,
Yasmine
Hmm… 20 mins between my response and yours, so you’re obviously subscribed to blog comments too.
It’s nice to see companies doing that. Makes it feel very “grass roots” 
Instead of just another faceless corporation.